


There Just Can't Be Nothing

by Sherlovi



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: #DEArtFest, #timeloop, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:54:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25139563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherlovi/pseuds/Sherlovi
Summary: So this is a rough one, I played a little bit with Nines' temper here from DA. Its a very brief fic, its meant to be brief to just get the cusp of the point across. If you're having a hard day I'd say skip this one for sure, there is no happiness to be found here I promise you.This is a Oneshot, it will never ever be continued, ever.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	There Just Can't Be Nothing

There was so much blood.

It was draining from it’s source and pooling in big puddles that accumulated due to the hardwood floors and large rugs lying on them only being able to soak up so much. The smell was horrid, the blood smelling the way it tasted when you licked away residue from a small laceration, amplified ten fold, thick in the air and unmistakable, lingering like a conscious presence that would surely never willingly leave. Behind was an unlatched door, cat’s paws leading through dust out into the hallway and away, disappearing where the apartment manager had bothered to clean the floors near the open doorway to the stairs. Nines couldn’t blame her, or the two that had likely followed close behind, for the interior of the familiar apartment were now too much to bare for any living thing. Nines’ body loomed over the corpse of the man he loved more than anyone, the only one he’d loved in his brief lifetime existing as a presence on this earth, a presence that he no doubt currently wished was erasable, his heart pounding unnaturally in his chest as he let loose a visceral scream that was definitely a replacement for vomit in humans, a reaction he couldn’t have and therefore had to make this substitution for just to release some of the terror and pain because otherwise, otherwise he might self destruct on the spot. Keeping your feelings in did no one any good during something like this. Nines walked over to Gavin’s chair nearby, their current placement in the living room, he threw it, immediately grabbing the couch in quick succession to throw it as well. He reached up to the walls and pulled down paintings, he threw the coffee table, tore apart papers, anything he could reach was utterly destroyed and when he was done with this hurricane of raw livid frustration he fell. He fell to his knees on the ground next to his beloved and he wept, his hand dragging through his hair as it shook, grasping at the synthetic imitation of a human’s natural strands.

“How many times are you going to go through this Nines,”.

It was a familiar voice, a voice that brought immeasurable comfort, but also intense chest searing pain, all at once. Nines sniffled, tears slipping off the tip of his nose as drool dripped from his lips carelessly, he gave a sideways glance, but only partially, not wanting to even look the other in the face, for fear it would just cause more pain he could not handle. “This isn’t healthy, you’ve gone over it a thousand times, maybe more! I’m not programmed to count I’m just, programmed to help you, and you’re not letting me,” Gav- no, Zen, he had to see it that way now. This form, this part of his consciousness that he kept around for some unfathomable reason that likely equated to him just not having the heart or energy left to watch someone else go, was no longer any kind of Gavin to him. He couldn’t be, he wasn’t Gavin, Gavin was, is, gone. “Its not your fault the case went cold Nines, its not your fault that there’s no leads,” Zen encouraged, his stance strong but his form unwavering from the spot he was in, his coding well aware that if he got any closer he’d immediately get forcefully sent away.  
“Its not your fault he died,”.

Nines’ hands lowered to the floor where his fingers started to pick at the loose strands on the carpets, he sniffled again, gritting his teeth which caused his jaw to clench and show off his strong facial outline. “It was ten thirty two,” he started, Zen sighed and turned away to watch as the world around them transformed into he and Nines sitting in the back of a self driving car, it was late and rain was patterning the windshield with a layer of water that dripped down to disappear when it got heavy. “I was running late because there was a parade I hadn’t accounted for, that had not cancelled in spite of the weather,” he watched the road ahead as the very parade he spoke of materialized, Zen stayed silent, his eyes kept focused on Nines, his expression unfazed, his, non-existent but still there metaphorically, heart feeling thoroughly exhausted, Nines and him had been through this before. They were out of the car in the blink of an eye, the world around them shifting again as they were brought to the stairs in Gavin’s apartment building. “He walked up the stairs,” they both started to walk, slow loping strides that were hard to discern as they skipped random steps and moved in backwards and forwards motion, sometimes turning back and then facing forwards again, all executed to make the job of finding them difficult. The scene sped up again, and the two were at the top of the stairs, where things got all the worse as the shoes they’d been following vanished next to where a bag was clearly placed among the dust. “He switched out his shoes to another pair to walk on different sized heels that tap with each step like mine, up to Gavin’s door,” Nines continued, the two of them walking up to the door in question, the door Nines had seen many times before. .

“He knocked,” just as he was about to, the scene changed a final time, this time to the interior of Gavin’s home, Nines and Zen standing stagnant as Gavin appeared from the kitchen. “He thought it was me before the knock, and was convinced it was me after, sometimes I’d bring groceries and my hands would be too full to open the door on my own, I’d grown accustomed to asking him for help in those situations because if I didn’t pass the groceries off by hand, he’d scoop them all up off the ground where I’d place them to open the door before I even had a chance to stop him... he was always waiting for me when I was invited to come over, always excited and happy to see me,” Nines explained fully, Zen looking away from him to stare down at the ground guiltily, he knew how painful this all was, because he was a part of the mind that was feeling that pain. He just, wanted to see Nines recover, but, then again, how could anyone recover from something like this, especially a detective with an eternally unsolvable problem. Even if he figured it out, if he somehow miraculously figured out who murdered Gavin, the problem would still be unsolvable, he would still be dead. “Gavin opens the door and-“ the sound of gunshots cut Nines off as his eyes closed in reflex, this part being one he was never able to watch in full, this part being one that Zen refused to watch either, it was too much, too surreal.

“The cats are scared off by the sound in the same way that the people in the complex are scared by it too, no one calls the police just yet or dares to look through their peek holes, people these days are fearful and private... the man walks in, even after six bullets from an indistinguishable gun that could not be traced without seeing it, a gun he did not leave tossed somewhere in the area as most petty criminals or murderers would, he checks to see that Gavin is dead, he is, the man is satisfied.” at the end of the sentence, they’re back through the door at the bottom of the stairs. “He leaves twenty minutes before I finally arrive to find Asshole hiding under the stairwell, the other cats gone with the man as he left the building much the same way he came,” he paused, staring up the stairs like he had when he made the morbid realization of what it meant, if one of Gavin’s cats was carelessly left to fend for themselves, the first time, he starts running. Time skipping from midway up, to all the way, he rushes through the doorway at the top, down the hall, and into the apartment and, there, this simulation of events is finally completed. Zen walks up behind, staring in at the corpse of Gavin Reed over Nines’ shoulder. 

“There can’t just be nothing, that can’t be the end of it that just...” Nines bit his lip, his shoulders dropping as he felt tears trying desperately to find an escape through the bottom of his eyelids. “Nines, I...” Zen chose his next words very carefully. “I understand that you’re traumatized, and that, you weren’t allowed to be on this case and felt anger when you dropped the subject and only for them to tell you it went cold but, this time loop you’re in? This repetition of that indescribable, gruesome, horrible day? Its not healthy,” Zen expressed. “You’ve been locked in your own mind for months, repeating that same day over and over with prayers to Ra9 that you’ll find something new but, you won’t,” Zen continued, taking a few small steps closer to the man behind the mind that he lived in.

“There is nothing, you can do, and nothing you could’ve done, you can’t keep doing this to yourself, there are people who are very much alive that still worry about you,” Zen finished, wondering, hoping hopelessly that he’d gotten through. Nines sucked in a breath, he rose his head, and, he made Zen Gavin, disappear. He wasn’t gone, he just wasn’t allowed here anymore, Nines didn’t have time for the distraction, he needed to focus. 

He needed to go through it all again.


End file.
